fare, posts by tag: communism - LiveJournal

In France, there are always enough polling stations. Schools and town halls are polling stations. More people whose ballots to count? That's automatically more people to run polling stations and count the votes. The very notion that some areas may be disenfranchised by lack of polling stations is inconceivable.

In France, people must show ID to vote, and must register in advance where they will vote with their ID, so multiple-vote fraud is almost impossible: it would require complicity between multiple government services, that check the one-to-one-to-one correspondence between people and identity documents and polling stations. Even then, a cheat there would leave quite a paper trail, especially as polling stations record who voted. For that effort, each cheater with duplicate identities could only go to so many different polling stations in a day. Massive fraud would be hard to pull off, and even harder to conceal.

In France, there are no complex ballots on which one needs to do markings with the right kind of pen. No confusion as to how to mark ballots. No manipulation by making some names come first or appear multiple times. No subjective judgment to declare which ballots are valid and how interpret them. No need for expensive untrustworthy machines to process them in a timely fashion. Instead, voters are sent one clearly printed ballot for each of the available options. The same ballots are also available at the polling station. If multiple issues are being voted on, each issue has its own color-coded and size-coded envelope that will go in its own ballot box, with no chance of unintentionally putting the wrong ballot in the wrong envelope and wrong box, which would be illegal. Each voter goes in an isolation booth, puts his ballot of choice in an envelope, then gets out of the booth and publicly puts the single envelope in the ballot box after his ID is verified and name is checked off by assessors of multiple rival parties. When the boxes are counted, in public, only envelopes containing a single unadulterated unmarked untorn uncrumpled pristine genuine ballot are counted as valid. The process and the criteria it applies are fairly clear, objective, hard to get wrong, and hard to dispute.

In France, ballots are cast in transparent ballot boxes in front of everyone. The boxes stay in full view of everyone until they are emptied and the ballots counted the same day at the same site by many people of all parties. The counts are reported immediately by phone in presence of the assessors, who also sign the report, that can be checked thereafter for each polling station. There is no opportunity for anyone to stuff ballot boxes or insert fake numbers in the counting. There is no counting by "machines" that can be pre-programmed or hacked to cheat. There is no keeping ballot boxes overnight where they can be tampered with. There is no set of privileged people with access to ballot boxes who can do a switcheroo or a stuffaroo.

In France, there are no "mail in ballots", where anyone with suitable access could insert or delete thousands of ballots with no way to assess afterwards the integrity of the process. If for some reason you cannot be present on the ballot day, you can register in advance to give your voting proxy to someone you trust to vote for you. But no one may be delegated more than two proxies, thus closing an obvious venue for massive fraud.

In France, it's the people themselves, not the communist "civil service", that runs the elections with every step along the way checked by many people from many rival parties. The only exception is the one-to-one-to-one correspondence between voters, IDs and polling places, but that's not massively gamable without detection. Therefore, the count of the ballots is widely considered trustworthy by everyone and never contested, while requiring no advanced technology whatsoever beyond opaque envelopes and transparent ballot boxes. French people watch with deep contempt and appallment the baroque, expensive, unfair, seemingly absurd, and completely untrustworthy process used in the USA.

In France, everyone votes on the same day, a Sunday when most people don't work. If somehow you work anyway and cannot take an hour off work to vote, get a proxy. Same day vote means no issue of long chains of custody with ballot boxes. Assessors see and count empty boxes in the morning, see and count the same boxes in the evening as the poll booths close at 8pm. All results are in around 10pm, definitely by 11pm. Actually add a few hours more if you care to include votes from time zones beside metropolitan France, though they seldom sway the results much. In any case, there is no room for massive fraud from a counting process artificially stretched over weeks as in the US.

AND YET, in France, the communists still cheat and still conquered Power, in an irreversible tight grip. It's just that they don't do it by tampering with the count. They do it by completely controlling the schools, the mass media, the campaign finances, the "civil service", and the courts. Thus, they can brainwash people, spread their uncontradicted narrative, defund any opposition, harass any opponent out of being able to afford a living, and fine or imprison the occasional overly active or successful opponent. If people vote "wrong", they will just force a re-vote until they vote "right" at which point the change will be made irreversible (as for the European Constitution).

In the USA, the communists control schools and media, but not so completely that they can totally hush opposing ideas: churches, a few exceptions like FOX, and now the Internet, break their stranglehold. Communists control the Democratic Party, the "civil service" in all cities and at the federal level, but don't control (all) the courts, so can't arbitrarily oppress their opponents. They control public funding, but there is just too much private funding that they cannot control, so they can't just defund their opponents. That is why they resort to tampering with ballots using a system OBVIOUSLY DESIGNED to enable fraud.

What's even more "funny" is that both voter registration and mail-in votes make a mockery of ballot anonymity—and then in modern times, preferences are obvious on social media and via the massive government surveillance. Since anonymity doesn't meaningfully exist, a trivially simple and obviously cheat-proof process would just be to make all votes public and count them, then leave enough time for losers to triple check that it was all legit. So, really, the complexity of the process is not even justified by anonymity as it is in France. (Whether anonymity is itself a good thing or not is another question.)

In the end, you have no way to trust the process. Not only that, it is obvious that SOONER OR LATER the process is bound to be exploited. You can be naive and believe it wasn't exploited YET (but then, you better provide an explanation compatible with the existence of gerrymandering). However you are stupid, evil or crazy (alternatives not exclusive) if you believe it's a trustworthy process the results of which you and everyone else should blindly accept as the basis for Political Sovereignty.

Elections are a sham. Always have been. Always will be. Like France's only serious and honest presidential candidate, ever, said: "If voting could change anything, it would have been prohibited long ago." (« Si voter changeait quelque chose, il y a longtemps que ça serait interdit. » — Coluche)

Back in the Soviet Union, a group of men, chained together in a vehicle that takes them to a remote gulag facility, discuss what befell to each of them.

Says the first: "my story is as unjust as it is sad. It was my birthday, so my wife gave me a watch as a present. But it was a poor quality watch and the next day it was already 5 minutes slow. And so of course, I arrived 5 minutes late at work. That's when the Political Commissar nabbed me and I was convicted, to five years of prison, for lack of revolutionary spirit, anti-social behavior and counter-revolutionary activities.

Says the second: "oh that's nothing: my story is even more unjust and sadder. It was my birthday, so my wife gave me a watch as a present. But it was a poor quality watch and the next day it was already 5 minutes fast. And so of course, I arrived 5 minutes early at work. That's when the Political Commissar nabbed me and I was convicted, to ten years of prison, for sabotage and espionage."

Says the third: "oh that's nothing: my story is more unjust and sadder than both of yours. It was my birthday, so my wife gave me a watch as a present. And it was a good quality watch and the next day it was still on time. And so of course, I arrived at work exactly on time. That's when the Political Commissar nabbed me and I was convicted, to fifteen years of prison, for buying a watch from the West."

Says the fourth: "oh that's nothing: my story is more unjust and sadder than all of yours!" It was my birthday, but my wife couldn't afford to give me a watch as a present. And so the next day I arrived as usual at the same time as everyone. That's when the Political Commissar nabbed me and I was convicted, to twenty years of prison, for absolutely nothing." To which the other convicts reply in choir: "You're such a liar: Everyone knows nothing is only three years!"

A few years later the very same men meet again, this time in Free America where they migrated, while again being chained as they are taken to a correctional facility. They tell each other their respective stories.

Says the first: "my story is as unjust as it is sad. I founded a successful company, and my product was priced 5% higher than competition. That's when the Feds cracked down on me and confiscated 25% of my company's profits, for price gouging.

Says the second: "oh that's nothing: my story is even more unjust and sadder. I founded a successful company, and my product was priced 5% lower than competition. That's when the Feds cracked down on me and confiscated 50% of my company's profits, for dumping and unfair competition.

Says the third: "oh that's nothing: my story is more unjust and sadder than both of yours. I founded a successful company, and my product was priced the same as competition. That's when the Feds cracked down on me and confiscated 75% of my company's profits, for price collusion and anti-trust violations.

Says the fourth: "oh that's nothing: my story is more unjust and sadder than all of yours!" My company was only so successful, and my products weren't much comparable in price to those of the competition. That's when the Feds cracked down on me and confiscated 100% of my company's profits, for absolutely nothing!" To which the other convicts reply in choir: "You're such a liar: Everyone knows nothing is only 15%!"

What always fascinates me when I meet a group of very intelligent people is the very elaborate bullshit that they believe in. The naive theory of intelligence I first posited when I was a kid was that intelligence is a tool to avoid false beliefs and find the truth. Surrounded by mediocre minds who held obviously absurd beliefs not only without the ability to coherently argue why they held these beliefs, but without the ability of even understanding basic arguments about them, I believed as a child that the vast amount of superstition and false beliefs in the world was due to people both being stupid and following the authority of insufficiently intelligent teachers and leaders. More intelligent people and people following more intelligent authorities would thus automatically hold better beliefs and avoid disproven superstitions. However, as a grown up, I got the opportunity to actually meet and mingle with a whole lot of intelligent people, including many whom I readily admit are vastly more intelligent than I am. And then I had to find that my naive theory of intelligence didn't hold water: intelligent people were just as prone as less intelligent people to believing in obviously absurd superstitions. Only their superstitions would be much more complex, elaborate, rich, and far reaching than an inferior mind's superstitions.

My uncle Hùng recently passed away. He was a great family doctor, a famous acupuncturist, a talented painter, and an all-around interesting character (though unhappily not such a successful husband or father). Despite having lived in France for about sixty years, he was still speaking with a noticeable accent, and with a strong aversion to conjugating verbs using anything but present tense (there are no tenses, or conjugations at all, in Vietnamese). In his defense, he had initially learned French in just one month (two? three? I don't remember), memorizing one hundred words a day in a scramble to pass an entrance examination to a French-speaking middle school — which he did, however barely.

I had the honor of living at his house for a year, and he taught me many things, including his colorful approach to cooking: always have a variety of foods so every color is present on your plate; also, clean the utensils as you cook. Sometimes, he would tell me stories over dinner, and so here is, to my best recollection, one of his stories, this one about practical Communism (with parenthetical comments I cannot help from adding). I don't remember whether the trip he told me about was to Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, or another country; but that could probably be determined by searching suitable archives. There might even have been several such events at which he was invited, so I may be conflating accounts of multiple trips; but the precise chronology and location of events is largely incidental to the story, so I'll tell it in such a way as for the events I remember from the stories to just succeed one another.

In the 1980s, my uncle had gained some international fame as an acupuncturist, notably after publishing his own treatise and translating some of the Chinese canons of the art. He had been invited to speak at a week-long international conference taking place in some Eastern European "Democratic Republic". (Indeed, communist countries were bankrupt, and could not afford modern Western medicine except for the topmost members of the Party; therefore, they were eager to seek a cheap substitute like acupuncture; furthermore, acupuncture had for it that its main champions were from China, a "brother" communist country. The promotion of acupuncture over Western medicine could thus be branded as another "victory" of Communism over Capitalism. And yet, China not being aligned with Russia means that Eastern European acupuncturists were eager to counterbalance their Chinese colleagues with contributors from anywhere but China to tone down the Chinese dominance.)

After landing, my uncle was received like a VIP by his personal political handler and a translator (who was willy-nilly doubling as KGB snitch when the political handler was absent), and was driven from the airport to his luxurious hotel by a chauffeur in a private limousine. (You see, just because everything belongs to the State and is accounted for as "public", doesn't mean that the "public" actually enjoys the limousine; despite communism, each and every single fragment of enjoyment or suffering in the country was still experienced by "private" individuals. The myth of "Public vs Private" is just an accounting fallacy.) Along the way, everything was beautiful: The roads were well paved, the streets were clean, the surrounding houses were pretty and freshly painted, the people they met looked healthy and happy; you were visiting a calm paradise of a country, if a bit drab and lacking in style. Yet, even at the onset you could tell something was off.

After they were installed in their hotel but before the conference, my uncle and other VIPs were invited to a party offered by some high-ranking government officials, in the VIP lounge of an imposing Olympic swimming pool. As feared, there were some long boring welcome speeches full of political propaganda, made slower by the need of translation; but finally, as some head honcho snapped his fingers, music started playing, and a group of young girls entered the swimming pool in an orderly fashion, then proceeded to give the attendants a show of synchronized swimming. After the show, the young girls were invited to mingle with party officials and VIPs to make friends, and maybe more, while champagne, caviar and other delicacies were served. Life sure was good in communist countries; at least, for the avant-garde of the proletariat.

Now, before, during and after the conference itself, there were ample opportunities to visit famous monuments in the city and the surrounding country. But my uncle noticed that they were always taking the same route, going through the same streets. He asked his chauffeur to use a different route, to see more of the city, but the chauffeur insisted that this was the fastest way, even though, looking at a map, it obviously wasn't very direct. Of course, the chauffeur had been instructed not to go any other way. And so, my uncle argued based on his taste for beautiful cars that the next time, he'd like to be the one to drive the limousine. One way or the other, he managed to go through different streets; it then became obvious why the chauffeurs were instructed to use the official route: because outside of these show streets, the roads were bad, the buildings were ugly and dirty, obviously mismaintained if maintained at all; everything was grey and dirty, and people did not look happy. Complacent tourists were being shown a Potemkin city, but poverty was everywhere else, for them to see if only they insisted in going beyond the places their handlers were taking them.

At some point, my uncle heard that there were fellow Vietnamese men working in this Eastern European country, with a large colony of them at some factory outside of town. He decided to visit them after the conference hours. After a long drive and some asking befuddled locals for directions, there he was, his luxurious official limousine parked in front of the pathetic building occupied by those foreign workers. The man in underwear who greeted him in was even more surprised than he was; but promptly, he welcomed my uncle to these communal barracks where many slept in the same room, with minimal comfort if any, and offered tea and whatever little food they had to this unexpected guest; in return my uncle offered his services as a doctor, which were a boon to these poor factory workers who weren't allowed to see one except in extreme cases. The workers and my uncle could speak in Vietnamese, a language not spoken by the translator, and so could speak freely without fear of government reprisals, and discuss everything: their personal stories, the situation in Vietnam, France, and that Eastern European country. These expatriate workers gladly accepted their miserable working conditions, because they were no worse than in Vietnam, and the pay was better: however poor was communist Eastern Europe, communist Vietnam was worse. These workers were closely watched and had very little freedom to visit the country in which they were working, and even less money to spend, for all the money they earned went back to Vietnam where remained the family they were sorely missing and for whom they were working so hard. Indeed, no one was allowed out of the country without a family staying home to serve as hostages in case they'd somehow decide to Go West. Eventually, this visit ended and my uncle left, to arrive back at his hotel late at night.

Arriving at the hotel, my uncle realized that some things were slightly wrong. There was more animation in the hotel than he expected that late; Russians from the KGB were present, orchestrating something. He was quickly ushered to his room; but as he kept hearing noise and could not sleep, he eventually sneaked out; and there he discovered that some spy game was being played in the hotel's interior court. Apparently, the KGB was having some kind of practice session of stealth fighting in urban settings (probably as part of the same program that Ion Pacepa revealed: training Arab and South American terrorists in satellite countries so as to conduct political assassinations with plausible deniability).

I wish I remembered more of these stories. I wish I had asked my uncle to write them down, or tell them in front of a recording device, while he was still alive. Oh well. I miss you, uncle Hùng.

PS: My mom has some complementary information on that story. The country where that conference took place was Bulgaria. One thing that struck my uncle was the difference in atmosphere as compared to Western countries, as soon as you crossed the borders: in Communist Europe, the air felt heavy and crushing; not just the men, but the earth itself, the buildings exuded oppression: the terror of the political police was indirectly affecting every gesture, every habit, even (or even more so) in the parts of the country that were for display to foreigners. Also, the lease by the Vietnamese government of cheap indentured migrant workers was a systematic large-scale operation, organized for communist Vietnam to pay in nature its large debt to "brother" communist countries, that had heavily financed its war of foreign conquest (however the Western media, after communist propaganda, try to paint the Vietnam War as a popular uprising). Vietnamese workers were paid well below the already little the local workforce was paid (which also explains why they couldn't afford to buy anything locally, lest they find some way to engage in criminal activities outside their long work hours); and from this meager pay, the government would confiscate the major part. And yet, Vietnam was so miserably poor that not only did volunteers abound to go work in these foreign countries in such unenviable conditions, but they were ready to pay officials big bribes to be chosen to go. There was also the hope of Going West after the end of the indenture contract, at which point the communist apparatchiks, possibly mollified by another bribe, might fail to harm the hostage family. Indeed, most of these workers did not return to Vietnam at the end of their contract, though few of them made it to the West; instead, they stayed more or less legally in their new country. There, apart from a few individual success stories, these workers constituted some minority group within the lumpen-proletariat; in that group, criminality was high and the Vietnamese mafia is notorious in Eastern Europe (I remember a Romanian friend just after the fall of communism asking me about Vietnamese immigrant criminality as the first thing that came to his mind as I told him I was half-Vietnamese). My uncle, when visiting Vietnam some years later, also met some distant cousins who made a fortune in Russia's Vietnamese mafia, and, visiting back their country of origin, were being admired and envied for the indecent display of their ill-begotten wealth. So much for the victories of Communism.

In imitation of many French socialists, my 9/11 commemoration is that of the events of September 11th, 1973, in Chile. However contra socialists, I greet the General Pinochet as a tyrannicide, the savior of Chile, and loathe Allende as its tyrant and destroyer. At the same time, we must remember that Allende was not killed by Pinochet, but by a cuban agent, whom Castro had entrusted with the mission of making sure that Allende, a liability while alive, would eventually die "a hero" — like that other monster Guevara before.

Pris et capturés car coupable
d'un crime impardonnable:
oser publier — et sans parure —
des paroles impies, impropres à être prononcées, proclamées impures
par les représentants du peuple et autres prophètes supposés,
impensable péché!
repousser la pensée aux confins du possible,
en se sachant passible
pourtant d'une punition
dépassant la prison,
la potence, ou le pal, par delà la mort
ou toute peine que le corps
pusse capablement supporter
sans que l'âme fusse frappée
corrompue par la faim et la peur qui réduisent la personne
à un ventre sur pied, dont le vide résonne
impuissant sous les coups des kapos,
les bottes des prétoriens qui pleuvent à tout propos
faisant plier le peu de volonté qui parvient, furtive et incertaine
à survivre sous le poids oppressant d'une suprême haine
en puisant du plus profond de soi l'espoir, improbable, que les dieux prinsent pitié
que la plaie putréfiée
leur tenant place de jour, et la puanteur glacée
qui plombait leur nuit fussent balayées
par une providence soudaine, fantaisie pas plus absurde que le tourment permanent où ces pauvres hères étaient plongés,
sous-produits d'un système monstrueux que la populace paralysée
non-seulement permettait,
mais supportait,
prétendant à tout prix n'en pas percevoir l'horreur éclatante
et plutôt plaçant foi en sa pernicieuse propagande omniprésente,
sans ami, sans appui, qu'un simple souvenir d'un passé
perdu,
l'aspiration à un futur cependant déjà amputé
traverser donc cet enfer sans issue
dont le moyen était violence,
le but souffrance.
Le pas l'oie se passe de loi.
Ici, il n'y a point de pourquoi.

Many libertarians, after Rothbard, start from the (correct) assumption that one's government is one's first and most direct enemy, to the conclusion that one should always side with the enemies of one's current oppressor. Rothbardians have thus prolificly denounced the US and supported its enemies in its hot and cold wars with National Socialist Germany, International Socialist Russia, Communist China, North Korea, North Vietnam, National Islamist Iran or Iraq, etc.

Of course, applying the same "logic", the respective citizens of those countries whose government are in conflict with USG should in turn support the US government in its fight against their own — if only their own government wouldn't murder them immediately at the mere utterance of such a support. And to take this line of reasoning to its conclusion, a Pole in 1939 should have supported Hitler and Stalin as opponents to his current oppressive government.

The Singing Revolution is a refreshing movie. When the oppressor believes his own lies and doesn't dare to kill anymore to preserve his power, it is only a matter of time until said power is overcome by... songs. The interpretation is mine, since the documentary only provides historical testimony, as reviewed by the many parties involved. The movie making technique is nothing fancy, and the archive footage is of varying quality, but the storytelling is relentless, and the subject has a power of its own. Thumb up! Note: 7.

Showing this week only at the Kendall Square Theater. Hurry to watch it! See the schedule for your city.

Reviews in The New York Times, and on CNSNews.com. More here, (Cám ơn, Amara).

Occupying a long series of some of the most beautiful streets in downtomn Mexico-City, the partisans of the left-wing loser of recent presidential elections have for the last six weeks organized a permanent camping. Under giant tents covered with marxist slogans, posters and placards, musicians and peddlers attract passers-by, while propagandists with loudspeakers either shout slogans or teach the socialist catechism to small assembled classes.

Unlike what its name suggests, the museum of Bellas Artes doesn't have a lot of Fine Arts, but it still is well worth the short and cheap visit. You won't find classics there, but mostly copies of those Funny Arts that our XX^th century ancestors used to call Modern, where conceptual jokes replace the exaltation of natural shapes. It notably contains a few mural paintings and other works by well-known mexican and other latin american artists, who obviously spent more time learning communist ideology than acquiring mastery of perspective and anatomy. On the other hand the over-the-top architecture with its marble halls illuminated with sunlight from the glass cupolas is quite worth the visit in and of itself.

En lisant toutes ces archives sur le Chili, j'apprends que Allende ne s'est pas suicidé, il a été abattu par les Cubains [VO] (assassinat révélé par Alain Ammar dans son livre Cuba Nostra). C'est clair que le suicide avec une rafale de mitraillette dans la tête, ça a toujours été pour le moins suspect; tu la tiens comment la mitraillette pour te tirer une rafale dans la tête? et comment tu fais disparaître la mitraillette une fois mort? Si Allende avait été du genre à se suicider, ce qu'il n'était pas du tout, il aurait pris un simple flingue, ou du poison. Et s'il avait été du genre héros suicidaire, il aurait pris les armes pour affronter les troupes contre-révolutionnaires à découvert (thèse officielle à Cuba). Mais il était plutôt du genre à vouloir contenter tout le monde et concilier l'inconciliable; il ne se serait jamais suicidé sans avoir tout fait pour sauver des vies, à commencer par la sienne.

Criminel par bêtise et par faiblesse plus que par méchanceté, gambadant allègrement vers l'enfer sur une route pavée de bonnes intentions, Allende voulait éviter le bain de sang en annonçant une reddition, et fuir à l'ambassade de Suède. Mais durant ses années au pouvoir, Allende avait laissé les hommes de Castro prendre le contrôle de son palais, et radicaliser sa révolution pacifique; Castro avait même passé un mois au Chili à insulter la démocratie et la presse libre devant le Parlement. De toute façon, Allende n'était qu'une façade, et Castro voulait qu'après le passage par une étape violente, ce soient les éléments plus radicaux du MIR qui prennent le pouvoir. Que la révolution réussisse ou non, Allende était condamné: dans un cas comme dans l'autre, Castro le voulait héros mort. Comme avec le Che, Castro voulait transformer une idole populaire qui aurait pu lui faire de l'ombre en martyr icône d'une révolution à son bénéfice. On peut dire qu'il y est bien arrivé. Il a donc ordonné à ses hommes en place de tuer Allende si jamais celui-ci voulait reculer ou se rendre. Allende a joué avec le feu. Il s'est brûlé. Bien fait pour lui.

Bien sûr, la presse internationale, massivement gauchiste, ne vous dira jamais ça, et renversera complètement la vérité. Allende était une marionnette de la DGI de Castro — on ne vous le dira pas. Par contre, on répétera à l'envi que Pinochet était une marionnette de la CIA, alors qu'il n'y a jamais eu de contact direct entre Pinochet et la CIA. D'un côté Pinochet était un homme de devoir incorruptible, insensible à toute influence étrangère, et soucieux du devoir de la neutralité politique de l'armée, jusqu'à l'appel au secours du Parlement (comme il l'a montré à l'occasion du coup d'état du 29 juin 1973); de l'autre, l'activité principale de la CIA durant la présidence d'Allende a été de financer la presse libre que Castro voulait fermer, de distribuer des tracts d'information, et d'encourager mollement quelques mouvements politiques d'opposition. Castro, lui, envoyait des armes, des instructeurs militaires, des guerilleros, des conseillers, des espions; il noyautait tout l'appareil de pouvoir socialiste; il télécommandait les assassinats, les confiscations, les occupations d'usines et autres actions sociales spontanées, etc., bref menait une campagne de subversion criminelle systématique et à grande échelle. Le peuple manifestait massivement pour s'opposer à cette politique d'Allende qui menait le pays à la famine et à la ruine: la plus grande manifestation ayant rassemblé un million de chiliens, la moitié de la population active. En protestation contre les confiscations, les taxes, les réglementations écrasantes, et la destruction de l'appareil productif chilien, il y eu des grèves répétées dans tous les secteurs, contre Allende. On ne vous en parlera jamais. Non, la grève, on en parle en France, quand les gentils fonctionnaires ultraprivilégiés paralysent le pays sous les aboiements des syndicats communistes privilégiés par l'État, pour obtenir davantage de privilèges au nom de tous les travailleurs. En fait, ce sont tous les travailleurs (les vrais) qui paient pour ces privilèges iniques.

Qu'un communiste comme Castro soit un salaud sanguinaire, on le savait. Ce qui est affligeant, c'est que les journaux français propagent tous les mensonges communistes. Salauds eux-mêmes, ou idiots utiles? Dans leur cas comme dans celui d'Allende, il n'y a au fond aucune différence: il participent mêmement, avec la même préméditation, de la même entreprise criminelle. Ma conclusion, je l'ai dit et je le répète: un bon communiste est un occis mort. Merci, Général Pinochet!

Apparamment, mon article Chili Con Carne sur le renversement d'Allende par Pinochet, dont une version est parue au QL sous le titre Pinochet, le moins mauvais des dictateurs, suscite régulièrement des réactions, en général de lecteurs gauchistes outrés ou de leurs idiots utiles. J'avais déjà répondu une fois: Comment traiter ou ne pas traiter un communiste. Mais puisque visiblement ça ne suffit pas, voici un nouvel épisode de la série.

NB: pour une mise en situation historique, lire les articles auxquels je fais référence au début de mon article initial, et voyez notamment le site Economía y Sociedad, où on trouvera cette explication de José Piñera, ou en plus succint et moins argumenté que mon article initial, mais avec la même teneur, cette intervention de Gary Kasparov.

As a follow-up to my short post The ideology spread by Stalin's agents, see this very good analysis by ESR, Suicidalism. (Cám ơn, Kae.)

When communists and nazis join together with a criminal movement disguised under the veil of religion, they create a fake nation that never existed, in a common fight against life and civilization, promoting the genocide of some and the enslavement of other innocent people, and using blatant LIES as their propaganda.

As usual, the leftist intelligentsia, that is the quintessence of intellectual and moral bankruptcy, will spread their lies, full steam ahead. Whoever promotes racism, sexism, classism, religious discrimination, and spreads slavery around him, will find support from the left. When a compass always heads south, it's a reliable compass. The leftist intelligentsia is a reliable compass. Sadly, it rules France.

PS: in French, see Pallywood: il n'y a pas qu'Al-Dura.

Oui, la responsabilité individuelle est une "fiction". Tandis, que "la société", "l'utilité publiique", "l'intérêt nazional" (socialiiiste), le "paradiis communiste", c'est quelque chose de tout-à-fait concret, de parfaitement défini, et de merveilleusement incarné par notre glorieux État et sa bienveillante Administrazion, -- sous condition toutefois que ce soit mon parti, ma faction, mes opinions, mon autorité, qui y prédomine -- sinon, ce même État est un instrument d'oppression aux mains de l'ÉnemydeklaSS. Bon, il y a malheureusement peu de chance que mon avis personnel soit pris en considérazion -- c'est pourquoi je soutiens pleinement la candidature de X..., chef que je me suis désigné, qui est un homme parfaitement droit et honnête, compétent et intellligent, bon et courageux, et surtout, qui ne possède aucun préjugé (différent des miens) (à ce que je sache) (d'après ce qu'il ressort de sa campagne) (du moins en comparaison de toute autre personne) (si l'on restreint le choix aux candidats engagés) (voire à ceux qui ont une chance de passer) (oops, ça ne fait plus grand monde) (merde alors, il ne reste plus qu'à voter Chirac).

Nos zamis-les-bêtes, quand ils voient un problème, en appellent à une action commune coordonnée (par eux si possible) pour le résoudre. Ils mettent les malheurs du monde sur le dos du patronat, de la CIA, et autres organisations occultes. À l'opposé, ils rient quand nous parlons d'ordre spontané et d'émergence de phénomènes non coordonnés. Et bien sûr, quand on accuse l'Establishment socialiste, ils prétendent que nous donnons dans la théorie du complot, cependant qu'ils savent évidemment qu'un complot socialiste n'existe d'autant moins que l'Establishment est selon eux dominé par les forces démoniaques ultra-libérales.

Cela me rappelle cette citation de fortune:

Le problème avec la plupart des théories de conspiration, c'est qu'elles présupposent que l'intention et la concertation soient nécessaires pour qu'un groupe d'individus agisse de façon néfaste.

Et la variante que j'ai jadis composée:

Le problème avec la plupart des théories étatistes, c'est qu'elles présupposent que l'intention et la concertation soient nécessaires pour qu'un groupe d'individus agisse de façon bénéfique.

Le mot qui me revient alors est animisme. Les gens qui voient de l'intention et de la concertation partout, ce sont des animistes. Comme quoi, certains ont toujours deux mille ans de retard... le problème étant bien sûr qu'ils veulent y entraîner les autres avec eux. Rétrogressistes extrêmes.

One of the first thing that any so-called "macro-economist" does when studying a phenomenon, is to postulate a deterministic model in which there is no choice and all economic costs are thus zero. That is, whenever they introduce mathematical tools, which they do so as to pose as physics-like hard scientists, they begin by negating the very essence of economics: the notion of economic cost. They are actually based upon an epistemology that explicitly denies individuals the essence of their human nature: the ability to make relevant choices. This is true of all economists from all schools of economics, save the few libertarians from the austrian school and its direct relatives. And the crooks include the neo-classical schools (that dictates the economic orthodoxy in most rich countries), and the keynesian and marxist schools (that dictate the economic orthodoxy in France and other socialist countries). No wonder why all these schools of economics produce only lies, in the form of deceitful statistics and bogus assumptions smuggled under the veil of meaningless mathematics.

If mathematical models were to be used at all in economic science, we would need non-deterministic models, replacing (neo)classical economics with quantum economics. And then we'd find that we're not able to even imagine the Feynman diagrams of all possible interactions over which to integrate our economic functions, because the relevant interactions that will take place between agents are precisely those based upon information that others don't have, including the person trying to build the model.

PS: Oh yes, one particular crook from the top of the Establishment just called me ridiculous for rejecting the results of so many scientific studies based on empiricism. You may find more about the fraud that is empiricism in social sciences by reading e.g. Hoppe, whom you may hear in this course.

... is exactly what dominates the Intelligentsia in France and other countries.

You do not endorse Stalin. You do not call yourself a communist. You do not declare your love for the regime. You do not call on people to support the Soviets. Ever. Under any circumstances. You claim to be an independent-minded idealist. You don't understand politics, but you think the little guy is getting a lousy break. You believe in open-mindedness. You are shocked, frightened by what is going on right here in our own country. You are frightened by the racism, by the oppression of the working man. You think that the Russians are trying a great human experiment, and you hope it works. You believe in peace. You yearn for international understanding. You hate fascism. You think the capitalist system is corrupt. You say it over and over again and you say nothing, nothing more.

Double Lives: Spies and Writers in the Secret Soviet War of Ideas against the West by Stephen Koch

Of course, Stalin also had more obvious agents.

Pinochet n'est bien sûr pas coupable quand les troupes contre-révolutionnaires commettent des exactions qui sortent du cadre strict de l'écrasement de l'usurpation communiste. N'ayant pris la tête des troupes qu'au dernier moment, il n'a pas pu les préparer — et leur violence est une bien faible réaction aux exactions des communistes auxquels les contre-révolutionnaires faisaient face (meurtres, enlèvements, tortures, vols, confiscations, vandalisme, etc.). Il suffit que Pinochet n'ait commandité aucune d'entre elles.

Par contre, et ce qui compte davantage, Pinochet est pleinement responsable, parce qu'il a endossé ces crimes plutôt que d'en sanctionner immédiatement les coupables: pas la moindre dégradation, arrestation, amende, humiliation publique, ni punition symbolique, ni réprimande, ni même simple mise au placard pour ceux qui ont commis par abus (plutôt que par accident) des violences à l'encontre d'innocents. Aucune enquête face aux allégations d'abus. Aucune excuse. Aucun dédommagement. Pinochet revendique même ouvertement la responsabilité de toutes les exactions; il clame couvrir tous les soldats et officiers ayant participé à toutes les opérations de contre-révolution. Soit. (Quoique: ce qui compte demeure ce qu'il a fait ou omis de faire, pas ce qu'il clame.) Mais alors, s'il n'y a eu même qu'une seule victime innocente, parmi une quasi unanimité d'immondes crapules communistes dont le Chili est débarrassé à juste titre grâce à lui, Pinochet méritera la prison dont il va écoper (en supposant un instant le principe douteux d'une justice pénale plutôt que rétributive.)

Toutefois, j'espère que s'il est condamné, il le sera pour un tel crime, et d'un tel crime établi, et non pas pour la simple allégation de crimes, et non pas pour ce qu'il a fait de bien: sauver le Chili, à l'appel du parlement et d'un million de manifestants, de la sanguinaire descente dans l'enfer communiste dans laquelle il était déjà profondément engagé grâce à Monsieur j'instaure la dictature communiste par décret en méprisant le parlement qui m'a nommé et en bafouant la constitution que j'ai juré de respecter, fort de mes 36% de voix et de mes alliés soviétoïdes. Car un communiste n'a rien d'un innocent, et il n'y a rien de plus justifié que d'appliquer aux communistes en plein milieu de leur oeuvre criminelle les méthodes contre-insurrectionnelles que ceux-là mêmes appliquent avec bien plus de cruauté quand ils en ont l'occasion, et dans l'absence revendiquée cette fois d'aucun discernement quant à l'innocence ou la culpabilité individuelle de leurs victimes — concept bourgeois s'il en est. Quand vient l'heure de la révolution, un bon communiste est un occis mort. Tirez les premiers, messieurs les communistes: tirera bien qui tirera le dernier.

PS: Reconnaissons au moins à Castro ce point positif par rapport à Pinochet: il a tué plus de communistes.

Petite question à nos amis les bêtes: socialistes, communistes, fascistes, gauchistes, alter-mondialistes et autres collectivistes sous quelque nom que ce soit. Admettons un instant que Robespierre, Lénine, Staline, Hitler, Mao, Kim Il Sung, Castro, Pol Pot, et autres joyeux drilles, n'étaient pas de vrais socialistes, dès lors qu'ils sont unanimement condamnés comme dictateurs sanguinaires (faits historiques sur lesquels nos z-âmes-il-est-bête sont par ailleurs des négationnistes jusqu'au-delà de l'indécence). Admettons donc un instant. Admettons aussi que des socialistes célèbres comme Marx ou George Bernard Shaw se soient légèrement emportés en appelant au génocide systématique des races et autres masses impropres au paradis socialiste, et que ce faisant, ils soient ipso facto (quoique momentanément) sortis du socialisme. Veuillons bien admettre. Soit. Et pendant qu'on y est, mettons de côté la ruine, la famine, la misère, le délabrement, la pollution, la bureaucratie, la corruption, l'injustice, la peur, l'oppression et la bêtise qui règnent systématiquement là où le socialisme est censément appliqué — admettons qu'à chaque fois, ce n'était pas là le vrai socialisme. De même, oublions l'appauvrissement, le marasme, la crise, l'inflation, le chômage, la violence et autres problèmes de société qui adviennent quand on applique un peu de socialisme dans une société encore relativement libre. Veuillons bien accorder que ces tentatives ne relevaient pas non plus du vrai socialisme. Je suis d'humeur conciliante aujourd'hui, et je veux bien concéder tout cela, et bien plus encore.

Mais alors, voici la question, portant sur un point que j'avoue avoir quelqu'hésitation à concéder: chers zamilébettes, qui nous dit que vous êtes de meilleurs socialistes que ne l'étaient vos éminents prédécesseurs, que vous vous comporterez mieux, et obtiendrez de meilleurs résultats?

Ah, j'oubliais: il n'y a que l'intention qui compte. Ne réflichissons pas. Émouvons-nous. Et haïssons ensemble l'ÉnemydeklAASSSS! (Note pour les retardataires: aujourd'hui, cet ennemi n'est plus le juif (quoique), c'est l'américain.)

Citation du jour:

Ne considérez pas les Collectivistes comme des idéalistes sincères mais fourvoyés. La proposition de réduire certains hommes à l'esclavage au profit d'autres hommes n'est pas un idéal; la brutalité n'a rien d'idéaliste, quel que soit son objet. Ne dites jamais que le désir de faire le bien par la force relève d'une bonne intention. Ni la soif de pouvoir ni la stupidité ne sont de bonnes intentions. — Ayn Rand

Johan Norberg tells us how communism is applied in Zimbabwe.

I admit that my previous post RIP, Aslan Maskhadov was so lacking of an explanation as to be easily misread. I admit that was based on an thinly ascertained opinion that might turn out to be wrong after further examination. And thus I thank my gentle reader averros for correcting me, though I'm not sure how much to trust his information. I am still looking for independent confirmation of his statements, but pending such confirmation, I stand corrected. I wrote the previous post hurriedly, because it was a hot reaction to some news. I knew I wouldn't be able to blog for some time, and I wanted to share my concern about an underdiscussed yet very relevant episode of our times, war in Chechnya. Now that I have more time, I would like to make it clearer what I did and didn't want to say on this topic, and what my opinion is now.

NOTE AND UPDATE: This article has always been about why my message didn't suppose personal endorsement of Maskhadov, though my point was admittedly quite unclear from my previous post. I have since received contradictory statements about Maskhadov himself, and pending independent confirmation, I will refrain from giving a verdict either way about Maskhadov. I have changed the tone of the article several time, alternatively leaning one way or the other. I now explain clearly why I lean however slightly with my current sources, since that's what the whole point of sources, though I'm very open to other sources, if they prove reliable. However, and that's also a point, I will grant Maskhadov the benefit of the doubt, whereas no such doubt exists regarding the culpability of the KGB bastards.